Very Disturbing but true

[Anonymous]

Only 23 men's teams in the 65-team NCAA Tournament managed to graduate at least 50 percent of its student athletes while women's teams in the postseason continue to graduate at a much higher rate, according to a University of Central Florida study released Tuesday.

Two men's teams, LSU and Minnesota, failed to graduate even one basketball player, according to numbers supplied by the 2004 NCAA Graduation Rates Report. No. 1 seeds Illinois (47 percent) and Washington (45 percent) graduated less than half their players.

UCF's Institute for Diversity and Ethics in Sport also found an increasing disparity between the graduation rates of white and black student-athletes on teams playing in this year's NCAA Tournament.

"We are releasing these graduation rates in order to give March Madness fans a perspective on how well our institutions of higher education are doing off the basketball court," institute director Richard Lapchick said.

"Regarding graduation rates for women, we can cut down the nets in celebration. As for men's graduation rates, especially for African-American student-athletes, the dance has barely begun."

Two men's teams, LSU and Minnesota, failed to graduate even one basketball player, according to numbers supplied by the 2004 NCAA Graduation Rates Report. Two No. 1 seeds -- Illinois (47 percent) and Washington (45 percent) -- graduated less than half their players.

Bucknell and Utah State both graduated 100 percent, but only four other schools topped 70 percent.

Numbers looked much better for women's teams, where only six schools in the 64-team field failed to graduate at least 50 percent while 35 graduated at least 70 percent. Eight schools graduated at least 90 percent with Holy Cross, Vanderbilt and Montana registering 100 percent.

All four of the top-seeded women's team graduated at least 53 percent.

When the numbers were broken down by race, the study showed 40 women's teams graduated at least 70 percent of their white players and 24 graduated at least 70 percent of their black players -- more than double the numbers for the men's teams.

Only 17 men's teams graduated at least 70 percent of white players while just 10 had the same percentage for black players.

Ten women's teams failed to graduate a black student-athlete while only two failed to graduate a white player. On the men's side, nine schools each failed to graduate white or black student-athletes.

"Race is an ongoing academic issue, reflected in the continued gap between graduation rates for white and African-American student-athletes," Lapchick said. "While rates for both groups have improved over the last few years, a significant disparity remains between graduation rates for white and African-American basketball student-athletes.''

Graduation rate numbers did not include Ivy League schools -- Dartmouth women and Pennsylvania men -- which do not report graduation rates.

[Falconfreak90]

Sounds just like all the bowl teams in football. Thank God our kids graduate at a respectable rate.

[bacn3]

What if you don't have any seniors for that year? Or what if the player is in a 5 year program? Are those taken into account?

[UK Peregrine]

What if you don't have any seniors for that year? Or what if the player is in a 5 year program? Are those taken into account?

It usually depends on why teams don't have any seniors. If they dropped out for any reason, academically couldn't hack it, going professional, etc., then it counts against you. The study of graduation rates is based solely on athletes who entered universities from 1994 to 1997 and were or were not able to graduate in six years.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2005/b ... uation.ap/